


Karma Is a Bitch

by Kit_SummerIsle



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Amnesia, Drugs, Gen, Humanized, crackalackalicious
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 05:51:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit_SummerIsle/pseuds/Kit_SummerIsle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megatron is human. Alone, naked and amnesiac in a jungle of South America.. That's what you get when the Constructicons reanimate you at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Crackalackalicious - verse!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 0

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Crackalackalicious](https://archiveofourown.org/works/392338) by [ladydragon76](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladydragon76/pseuds/ladydragon76). 



> I’ve had this idea about Megatron being on Earth and alive too when the other mechs’ humanforming happens, and having adventures of his own too; and [ladydragon](http://ladydragon76.livejournal.com/) kindly allowed me to play in her Cracka universe with it – and so the fic was born. The story starts just a little before [Crackalackalicious](http://archiveofourown.org/works/392338/chapters/644232) starts and more or less goes parallel with it, while not mentioning the events there. Though it is mostly from Bayverse, the fic is half ignoring the later films, half taking elements (ideas and characters) from them, like Megatron retrieved from the ocean and reanimated with the shard of the Cube. The mech characters (mainly the Constructicons: Scalpel, Mixmaster, Rampage, Scrapmetal and Long Haul, but Megatron too) are like Bayverse in looks, but in the story, they are humanized by the same mysterious event than in the original Crackalackalicious.

The huge container ship was sailing under full power crossing the Pacific ocean from its port in Auckland towards the distant land in South America. It made one stop near Tonga Island, but since then its path was as straight as Long Haul could make it with the primitive navigation equipment it possessed. Divested long of the bothersome containers that took up most of the space, the ship rose higher than its usual waterline, even considering the huge mechs that inhabited its deck since they took it over from the humans who previously crewed it – and were now resting in their ocean tombs, changing place with one huge, black mech who was lifted out from its deep resting place. The Constructicons worked hard to lift out, then to clean the frame from the disgusting organic growths before Scalpel could repair the damaged frame itself. 

Scalpel welded the last plate back to its place, plugged in a nearby port and ran a last diagnostic. The systems all checked out acceptable and the little mech skittered up on the silent, black frame, his talon-tipped, tiny legs clattering on the dark metal. He wasn’t interested in their surroundings, but the huge ship they appropriated some weeks ago was drawing close to the mainland, the high mountain-range called Andes already visible in the setting sun. The Constructicons were in varying states of boredom, having exhausted their usefulness by lifting Lord Megatron’s frame out from the depths of the disgusting ocean, curiously named Pacific for some reason and they were now amusing themselves by wrecking various parts of the cargo ship.

The container ship was big even by Cybertronian standards, which was the very reason they choose it, besides it being inconspicuous enough for the meddlesome Human authorities… and their accursed Autobot allies. It rankled them all to have to hide from the puny organics, but they were just too many and with the Autobots’ assistance even dangerous to the surviving, scattered Decepticon forces. 

Especially as the traitor Seekers were not answering to any comm since that outrageous message to space from Starscream proclaiming that _‘The Mighty Megatron has been finally deactivated and I, Starscream lead the Decepticons’_ and there was no way the treacherous Seeker didn’t have a servo in _that_. Soundwave has disappeared to parts unknown with all his cassettes and the Constructicons for all their ferocity were not strategists or tacticians to plan a war. They needed a leader and since they stole the last Allspark shard from a human who didn’t even realize that he’d had it, Scalpel was sure that he could reignite Lord Megatron’s spark again. 

The little medibot arrived to the huge chest plates at last and plugging in again, waited impatiently in the bright splash of the floodlights while the reinforced armour parted hesitantly and the dark, empty spark chamber rose from the depths of the huge frame. The little medic wasted no time to lift the shimmering shard out from the protective case it was held and before it could wreak havoc with his own systems, plunged it into the silent darkness of the chamber. He skittered off of the frame at once, not wanting to be anywhere near if… when their violent leader onlined. 

By the time he was off the black armour and hopping onto the ship’s deck, it was already warming and the first tremors run through it so Scalpel hasn’t stopped running on clattering legs until the nearest sturdy-looking structure that could hide his diminutive and vulnerable frame. The rest of the Decepticons were also quiet and staying at the ends of the ship, watching intently but making no mistake in getting closer. Not quite hiding, but not calling attention to themselves either. That has never been a wise choice with their unpredictable leader, as Starscream could readily attest to.

The huge frame shook with rattling plates on the deck and shifted, the claws on both servos tightening into a fist. The tension was nearly a living thing, writhing aboard the huge ship, twisting around them and choking their vents. Rampage couldn’t take it unmoving any more, the red frame twisting and jumping from structure to structure in nervous tension, his whips mangling the unfortunate loading cranes where he went. Long Haul was hissing at him to stop the slag of it, as Megatron’s dark helm started to rise, when…

Time stopped.

Processors stopped processing, vents forgot to breathe and fuel pumps skipped a beat. Energon thickened and its flow ground to a halt in their tubes and tensing cables twanged from the stress. Sparks flared up painfully and the pain started to spread outwards like white-hot magma, engulfing their frames from inside out. Limbs twitched and writhed, vocalizers spat static instead of glyphs, optics shorted out and the mechs aboard the suddenly silent ship fell into a heap where they were. 

In case of Rampage, he went splat on the deck in the gap that his last leap couldn’t clear, frame suddenly shrinking to be so much smaller and softer than before and plunging several dozens of meters down, ending in a sickening crunch. The heap of bloody organic material convulsed a few times on the dirty deck and went silent, blood pooling sluggishly underneath it. Uneasy, heavy silence gripped the ship, all the mechanical noises dying down, aside from her own engines that propelled it and its cargo towards the not so distant land with full speed.

It was almost half a joor later when the first shriek rent the air aboard the silent ship. It went on and on, rising in pitch and choking off in gurgling coughs, but starting up again, desperate and harrowed, filled with all the agony of the world – and then some. Crashing sounds accompanied it in a tiny corner of the huge ship, amongst the suddenly far too big structures and walls, where a fattish, naked man lurched on unsteady legs from wall to wall in an attempt to run away from himself. His hands were tearing bloody handfuls out of the tangled, coarse grey hair on his scalp, the blood dripping into his eyes further enflaming his terror and disgust. 

The distorted sounds of the desperate scream might or might not have contained words but the human vocal cords could not pronounce Cybertronian sounds, only hurt from the forced sounds and the shrieking. Choking gurgles stifled the cries every so often and soon the coughs spat blood onto the dirty decking as he staggered blindly forward, rebounding from the uncaring walls that gave him new and new reasons to scream in pain.

At the end of the corridor a yawning abyss awaited him, the protective railing long since demolished by one of them, maybe Mixmaster himself in a bored rampage. He couldn’t see it though, the blood in his eyes, the terror pounding in his ears, the tangling hair in front of his face made his faltering, struggling steps blind. After the last step that took him over the lip of the metallic floor, he fell for a long time, scream sweeping ever higher, into the ultrasonic range until the dark, swirling waters swallowed it up without much ado… and silence once again ruled the luckless ship.

The next sound came from seemingly everywhere, a long, drawn out, shuddering screech, ending in a sudden, ominous crunch. As the huge ship tilted ever so slightly to the left, several different alarms blared their warnings suddenly into the silence. But noone was around who could hear – or heed them. The horizon rose while noone watched it and the mountain range came to loom over the ship that still sailed full tilt towards it. Another underwater rock scratched its belly and a deep groan echoed among the empty walls. The engines hiccupped once but propelled it further, faster, towards the shore.

The emptied holds and the loss of several tones of mech-frames caused the ship to rise well above its usual water-line, the flat bottom soaring over several nasty rock formations. The beach was now close enough to see the jungle, growing down nearly to the water-line, the lights of the small village that looked to be just avoiding the crash by a few hundred lucky meters and its panicking, running inhabitants, the car-horns blaring and the small bell in the wooden bell-tower clanging frantically, awakening everyone from their heat-stifled slumbers.

In a small, metallic crate a thin limb twitched. The cramped space gave no room for more and claustrophobia made the small male shudder and try to beat off the lid from the crate – the hole in one side where he entered being far too small in his current form. How in the Pit he got bigger, Scalpel wondered crazily, maybe the shard’s effect; before the pain from his blows on the lid exploded in his forearms. Bigger and softer? Why? What happened? Then he froze at the ominous, deep groaning that reverberated in the ship’s frame. It didn’t sound anything good, the small mech… now a man, was intimately familiar with the sound of tortured metal.

The ship groaned once more, shuddering hard as another rock scored its underside from underneath, tilting heavily, but still speeding towards the shore. Another deep, reverberating clang sounded and the stubby bow was roughly pushed above the waves, water cascading off its sides, the stressed sides squealing, protesting against the weight drawing it back down, while the underwater reef and its own momentum from the engines running full out forced it forward, higher, onto the rocky ridge near the shore.

On the deck a man opened coal black eyes, staring up confused into the dark sky, processor… brain completely empty, into the blindingly bright loading lights, amidst deafening clanging, creaking and groaning of dying metal. It wasn’t an unfamiliar noise for him, having heard it in countless battles and he lay there, gathering his fleeing thoughts, trying to regain the command of his recalcitrant limbs. But something was strange in the familiar noises, in the limbs… and the sheer scale of things around him. Things shouldn’t be so… enormous compared to him. Should they?

He didn’t have time to find out the cause though. With another deafening crack the ship broke into two when the stressed metal reached the end of its endurance and the man found himself flying, catapulted by heaving metal he had been laying on. Limbs flailing awkwardly before he pulled them close to… to do what? And what was wrong with him anyway? Optics… no, eyes nearly blind after looking into the floodlights he flew a good hundred meters from the dying ship before splashing into the water, the force of the impact knocking him out completely. 

A big, frothy wave carried him to the shore, rolling him into the rocky sand, the embedded little shells cutting dozens of small wounds on his dark skin, where blood started to seep and mingle with the water. The sting of the wounds and the convulsive cough from swallowed, inhaled seawater made him regain some of his consciousness. He tried to stand but ungainly limbs still didn’t want to obey him. He tried to run a diagnostic but none of his systems responded. He tried to speak but coughing fits and retching made him stop that attempt. He tried to remember… but nothing pinged back from unresponsive memory banks.

He dimly heard loud shouts over the roar of the waves and the explosions, clangs and groans of the shipwreck. Lifting his helm… head, he saw only bleared, flickering shapes in his tear-filled, salt-stung eyes. Big shapes wavering in the dim lights. Should they be this big? Big is dangerous. He was dangerous? No. Something deeper than still inconsistent thoughts told him that. It is dangerous to stay here small, vulnerable, not knowing the situation and… weak. He loathed that last word instinctly but acknowledged the assessment. It was risky to remain here. Fight was out of question while small and so weakened so he must leave and hide until he regained his strength, his faculties. 

The man crawled in the sand on all fours, his wet, dark skin glistening in the bright moonlight. The long hair hung all over his shoulders, its wet lengths tangling around his neck, uncomfortable and… soft? Slick rather, he thought, its wet slide against his skin was repulsive like an organic slug slithering on him. Some of it was in front of his face and eyes, the black strands hindering his vision even further in the dark. He ignored the cuts and bruises he acquired but as soon as he felt his limbs better coordinated he stood up, first staggering, then running towards the jungle, which he recognized as safe to hide in.

The humans living in the village collected around the ship once it stopped moving, half beached like a dying whale, with flashlights and torches sweeping all over the sand, the lights enlarging their shadows on the flat beach. They shouted and yelled excited, some of them frightened, the noise filling the beach, wavering between the shipwreck and the jungle. They never noticed the dark shape that crawled into the darkness of the trees behind them, crashed through the underbrush, fighting with the large leaves and strong creepers that tried to stop him, ensnare him, the thick boughs that rebounded from his blows and hit back until he was forced to stop trying to use force. Nor was the springy, dense foliage impressed by his angry roars and garbled swearing.

His skin was nearly covered by cuts and bruises, blood oozing and dripping at a great rate from a number of them, the bits of leaves, tree-sap and ground he occasionally fell onto covering him with a dirty, sticky mess. But he didn’t stop for all the discomfort, the pain or the obstacles, burrowing ever deeper into the dense foliage. The flexible boughs and leaves rose again after he passed, closing up and covering his track fully from most possible trackers, if there were any.

It wasn’t for another joor… hour before he stopped, finding a thorny bush to burrow into for safety. After listening carefully for sounds in the near complete darkness, but he was unable to decide if there were any suspicious, so gave it up. Slowly, the shock of the wounds and the troubling questions caught up with him and he fell into recharge… sleep, interrupted many times by noises nearby or further in the living, breathing jungle.


	2. Day 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The presence and role of blood might squick some people, so read at your own risk. More notes about it at the end.

He woke to a small, chittering noise nearby, in fact almost beside him. Black eyes opened to slits, battle-honed instincts made him frozen until the situation was assessed… but the darkness was nearly complete under the thick canopy of the jungle and he saw nothing. But his ears told him enough. A servo… hand shot out, grabbing ruthlessly something small and furry that gave out terrified noises, lifted it up and the man paused a bit with wary optics… eyes, like almost remembering… of something or someone he used to hold like this… but the memory bit sunk back to the fog that covered his processor… brain again.

Lifting the small thing he tightened his servo… hand and the frightened noise stopped, the small animal convulsed and with a small, final squeak fell limp, life clearly leaving it. The tip of his sharp talon… fingernail broke the skin and a sticky, warm substance dripped down on his fingers, its heavy smell filling his nasal sensors… nostrils. He would need fuel…fuel? Drink, something in his muddled mind directed him. Yes, drink energ…blood? Lifting the small thing in his grip, he hesitantly licked the liquid. 

The taste was satisfyingly metallic, with crystalline undertones, even though the state of it was disgustingly organic and sticky. But the taste nearly exploded on his glossa… tongue and he automatically swallowed it and licked up more. It repulsed and drawn him at the same time without knowing the reason for either attitude and the man growled in frustration. But instinct made him drink substance until the last drop has oozed out from the small animal. It wasn’t a lot but enough to regain his senses somewhat after the recharge… sleep. 

Why these concepts had this strange, double layered quality, he wasn’t sure. It was like he faintly, almost remembered something… but new concepts took the place of the deeper, older ones as soon as they appeared, deleting the inapplicable ones one by one, hindering his efforts to remember. The man growled again and dropped the limp frame… body when it lost its usefulness. Eating it never even entered into his mind, the concept was completely missing and the fur on the small body was even more disgusting than the stickiness of the blood. 

His own fur was the same irritating thing. It covered him long and annoying on one distinct patch with some shorter, more easily ignorable clumps elsewhere and there was even a short, thin coat over the coarse, dark skin. He hated it immediately, every last hair of it. But he wasn’t wallowing in the matter after pulling on the long strands on his helm… head and growling angrily at the pain and blood from the small wound. Apparently it was attached strongly to his armour…skin. He gathered the longest fur on his head with his hands and twisted it until it sort of tangled enough together to stay out of his face. Mostly. 

The darkness of the deep jungle was diluting slowly to dark green, then greenish gold as the rising sun broke through the thick foliage in slanting rays. He felt uncomfortable being unable to look over the trees, down on them… he scowled at the strange thoughts. It was impossible to be taller than a tree, right? The forest was quieter than during the night and the man could observe himself for the first time, wondering why it was so hard, impossible really to remember anything. He was angry with himself for being unable to remember, frustrated enough to aimlessly hit the plants around, gathering new bruises and cuts for his efforts. 

With the light warmth came and the air around began to be heavy with moisture, cloyingly sticking to his skin. The man pinched the skin, the sharp nails breaking it too, the blood welling up from the small wound. He frowned deeply. It shouldn’t be red… should it? He observed the hand, its muscles that jumped as he made a fist and it was somehow a satisfying sight. Strength was good. He needed strength for… he wasn’t sure what for. But he needed it and it was good to see the muscles that popped out as he stretched up, straightened his legs and finally stood.

His limbs were much better coordinated now, he noted with satisfaction, legs and arms flowing into some kind of a rhythm, remembered moves of a… style? A fighting style in which he was good at. No, not simply good. He was the best. The best… of what? Why couldn’t he remember even his designation… name? Where did he come from and what was he doing here? The ship rose from murky memories and with it a small, many-legged robot… mech… microscope… man? It was all so confusing and he hated the slagging tangle of non-answers. 

But he came here and so there had to be something here that was important. Something not-quite here, something not-quite now, but very important. A huge shape, angular with glowing, tangled lines that he couldn’t recognize. Darkness and cold, freezing, soul-crushing, hated cold. Small insects crawling all over him, hacking and cutting. Explosions and flying free, unleashing his rage. A scream… then fiery fire in his spark… heart? None of it made any sense. He couldn’t put the snatches of memories and flashes of pictures together, there was just no frame of reference for them.

The small carcass was where he dropped it, only covered in even smaller insects now and the man kicked it away disgusted, the insects crawling over it reminding him of something humiliating and bad. The he growled at the soft, bloody flesh splashing his feet with its smelly juices, shaking it off. He had to go. Somewhere. Somewhere that was not here. Not in the jungle either… for a klik he felt dry, hot dust in his nostrils instead of the humid, cloying warmth of the forest. He should go there. But first… gather information about where he was and where his target might be. Or what this slagging planet was called. 

In a way it was easier to move in the filtered sunlight than in the dark, because at least he saw the obstacles. In a way it was worse, because he had to watch the organic muck, teeming with organic life, bearing organic whatever around – including himself – and it was all nauseating to touch, step on and bear with. The organic plant life was stronger even than he and the man took it as a personal affront. How dared it to be more resilient, to rebound from his hits and snag his feet with sneaky wines? 

On top of it, as the sun rose and the temperature rose into stifling hot levels, the humidity grew too, making it incredibly hard to breathe it into his laboring vents… lungs and extract the necessary oxygen from it. Even with his mouth open, the air always felt too thick, humid, like his intakes… nose was designed badly. To add insult to injury, the air he had to breathe teemed with tiny, flying insects, determined to self-deactivate in his mouth, and choke him in the attempt. 

It was miserable going. The soft, disgusting muck underfoot had almost as many bugs and organic life as the air, many of the having spines, thorns or mandibles and all attacking his naked feet. He had a great endurance, the man knew, but small, insignificant and annoying in the millions was worse than one worthy enemy he could beat to pulp. It wasn’t like that one sting or tiny bite hurt much, no. But after a joor… hour of staggering in the humid jungle when he sat on a fallen tree – jumping promptly as his aft… behind was stung by a ruthless wine’s barely visible thorn – and checked his feet it was enflamed and swollen to nearly the double it should be. 

The jungle looked the same everywhere he looked and the sounds were all inconspicuous too, signifying no particular goal he could go towards. He tried to navigate by the sun but as it was very high, it wasn’t reliable help, even if he knew where to go. By the time it was shining from directly overhead the heat was nearly unbearable and the man started to feel his mouth and lips dry, despite of the humidity in the air. The taste of the blood he was remembering was suddenly a craving as his frame… body told him to find something like that, liquid to drink, whether it was blood or else. His mind identified the feeling as thirst.

The ground had moisture, his swollen toes felt its pockets with a cool relief from the stings, but it was disgustingly dark and smelly, obviously not fit to drink. But its presence meant more liquid… water around, the man hoped. So much moisture must come from somewhere, must collect somehow and flow towards some distant target. So he slogged on, even when his feet sank into the sticky mud up till his ankles and when he lifted it, he was disgusted by the small organics sticking to the skin. 

He stopped by another fallen giant of a tree, covered with a greenish, soft material that was actually comfortable to sit on, and lifted a swollen feet to observe the organic thing on it. It was slimy and the man nearly retched when he saw that it was feeding from his blood, when he tore it away from the skin, it left a bleeding wound behind. He quickly ripped them all away, throwing them into the tree-trunk, listening to the satisfying splat as they impacted on it. Pulling up his feet from the mud he decided to have a rest while he had such a nice seat. In kliks he was fast asleep.

He woke some time later to a feeling that something heavy was on his chest, the cold, scaly skin sliding over it lazily. Scrambling to sit up and grab the thing a rarely given sound of shock escaped from his lips. The thing was slick and cold, slithering out of his hands easily, the thick, long, sinuous body disappearing into the foliage before he could do anything else. His heart throbbed and thudded madly in his chest and the sleepy laziness was blown away completely from his eyes. He didn’t know what was it, but the casual ignorance with with the creature slithered across him, annoyed him. He might not remember much about himself, but he was sure that being ignored was not what he’d had to put up with often. 

Anger rose in his mind, enflaming his thoughts and the man shouted hoarsely into the uncaring jungle, beating the disinterested trees and tearing off the leaves that he felt were taunting him. The leaves tore off easily, leaking sticky juices but giving him no satisfaction whatsoever. The trees were all slagging flexible, covered with moss and ferns that absorbed his blows – but not his fury. His rage grew, but there was nothing here that could assuage it.

Again, a hazy memory rose from murky depths… a someone he held and punched and who gave so satisfyingly pained reactions… but whoever it was, he wasn’t around to serve as punching bag. Noone was around, just the jungle and the insects. No clue as to who he was and why he was here. No enemy to fight, no battles and victories. He almost felt sorry that he left the shore, it would have been at least more satisfying to fight with an actual enemy, instead of slogging in the mud and acquire tiny, shameful wounds from insects less than tenth his size.

Thinking back, he didn’t understand why he was hiding, blamed it on being dizzy and not quite himself from the… change? He mentally poked the word, the concept bemusedly. Change meant that something was different before it. But what? The murky memory bits didn’t really help, what he could glean out of them were clearly impossible. Something huge, metallic and flying. It was completely stupid. Impossible and childish. He was a man, an organic, fleshy being. He looked over the body he had, like it was new. In a way it was, since he couldn’t remember a slagging thing about it.

The body was powerful and its strength filled him with satisfaction. The dark skin rippled over taut muscles as he moved, fascinated by the almost painful stretch of the limbs. Tired, sore, numb and stiff… the concepts were strange but his mind supplied the labels to the feelings and he accepted them. Must rest and sleep again in the dark cycle… night, preferably out of the mud. A strand of the hair fell over his shoulder and he twitched. Now, it was a feeling he could do without. It was revolting this soft, wet slide on his skin, like that creature earlier. And he had so many of this fur… hair!

A tool popped into his mind, something to could cut the hair with. But he had nothing, even though his hand gripped air in a familiar movement, missing something from it. So he had had some kind of a sharp tool, by the feel of it a weapon. It felt right. He should have a weapon. The jungle so far wasn’t inimical and no weapon would be effective against the insects but still, he should acquire one. It felt natural, somehow right to hold something that could be used against… anyone or anything else.

He walked over to a tree, hand coming up to grab a bough. It was strong and springy enough and the man pulled it with both hands, feet planted on the trunk to break it off. It was surprisingly well attached to the trunk and the first attempt didn’t succeed. The man approved. It was a good choice then, he just have to force it more. The long, straight branch groaned at the force and suddenly cracked off, leaving a thick rod in his hands, perhaps as tall as himself. Freeing it from the smaller limbs and leaves, and swinging it experimentally, he nodded satisfied. It’d do.

It was shameful to use it this way he thought, but as far as noone saw him, the rod was a great help in walking too. It simply felt good to have something to lean on and tap out the mud in front of him before stepping into it and beat away the accursed creepers that hung from seemingly every tree-branch. He still maintained it to himself though that it was to be a weapon. He had enemies, the man knew deep down; might not be here, but he should be wary. 

The stream, when he found it caught him by surprise, it was so much grown over by the jungle. When he fought his way through the tangled bushes, beating away the palm-sized, hairy insects that lived among them, he felt several things at once. First, his feet sank into the muddy water up to his ankles. Then the ground appeared to be moving and nearly exploding from under his feet, dumping him into the trampled mixture of muddy water and crushed plants and finally a very-very toothy, impressive jaw snapped at him barely inches from his face.

The man wasn’t given to panic attacks, nor had any danger caused him to react by freezing. The rod was lifted and crashed into the side of that bony jaw with an impact that jarred his arm up to his elbows – but which also caused the creature to flip to the side and sink into the water. But it didn’t go away either, not from a promising lunch that waded into its lookout so unsuspecting. Barely a ripple gave its movement away and the man acted entirely on instinct when he jumped as high as he could from the soft, muddy streambed. The vicious teeth clamped onto a bough instead of his leg, the creature’s dissatisfaction obvious from the sudden trashing. 

Then gravity took over and he landed on top of the cayman, feet and rod together crushing the bulbous eyes in an unintended, but very lucky move. It trashed even more, the water around them painted red with it blood, throwing the man off and slithering deeper into the water. The man didn’t wait it to come back, climbing out of the bloodied, mucky water into the solid – or nearly solid ground. Heart thumping fast again, the adrenaline in his blood making him hyperventilate from the still humid air, he leaned onto a tree trunk, hand clutching the rod with a grip nearly breaking it. He’d known the weapon was a good idea.

But he didn’t go far from the water. He needed a drink too once the muddied water settled and he could drink from it. Cautiously, of course, with the rod going in first, to make sure he had no other surprising creatures laying in wait and attacking while he was occupied and unprotected. After the drink he splashed through the shallow stream, watching out for more of his attacker. The creature had a truly impressive jaw with vicious fangs that he almost admired… and nearly envied too. 

But none of those animals he could spot from afar made another move to attack him. Were they afraid or the daylight not their favourite time to hunt? He didn’t know but after crossing the water and sloshing the worst of the mud off of him he walked through the forest for hours to put distance between them and himself. He began to notice the game trails too and realized that by following them he could move faster and with less resistance from the ubiquitous foliage that seemingly hindered every step he took.

When the jungle sank again into the darkness with the sun’s rays dipping below the unseen horizon and the small noises of the day strengthened into a hooting-trilling-snarling cacophony, he decided to stop. After the water creatures, he took no chances and burrowed again into a thorny bush, uncaring of the red streaks the thorns carved into his dark skin. The little sting was nothing. In the bush there was a strangely circular, unnatural looking construct with some spherical stones in it. When it didn’t move, he cautiously picked up one, the grip of his hand suddenly cracking the shell, the oozing, thickish liquid surprising him as he recognized the objects: eggs. 

Another part of his faulty memory banks suggested that their liquid part would be good to drink, like the blood or the water. He licked the slimy substance on his fingers and shuddered. It was much worse than the blood, the taste fully organic, the texture slimy and sticky at the same time and he nearly retched. But after some hesitation and making a disgusted face he decided that bad as it was, he needed the sustenance. The four remaining eggs gave him enough so that the strange emptiness in his middle was filled and he felt better than before. He fell to sleep very soon after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a bit more about drinking blood. Curiously enough animal blood has nutritional value (human blood less so), lots of protein (no fat) and dozens of minerals, trace elements, so theoretically a blood diet could keep a human alive for a while. (digesting it, because of its consistency is another matter). Animal blood, in a cooked form is consumed in many countries, raw blood in some. It’s taste is strongly metallic, because of the iron and salty, so former mechs might just consider it more tasty than say a fruit drink. :-) Together with eggs, I’d say it covers human dietary needs, on a short term (weeks) certainly.


	3. Day 2

He woke to nausea and an even worse cramping in his middle than the day before. Before he was fully conscious, he retched, heaving stomach throwing up everything he consumed in a disgusting, slimy stream, leaving an awful taste in his mouth. The cramps intensified and his helm… head started to throb in sympathy with his middle until he wanted nothing else but laying down and writhe on the ground in pain. His vision swam and shaking his head to clear it just made the headache worse. The man was sure that he never before felt this awful, not in a million battles… was he in battles, the thought rose up from the sea of agony? Where, how and fighting whom?

But there were no more details, just the usual murky haze where his memories should have been – and the pain that was there and overwhelming him. He bent over, arms clasping his middle as he panted with the waves of nausea and headache. He could not walk like this, the man knew. Better stay in the bush where he was at least somewhat protected from anything inimical. What has caused the pains, he didn’t know, but it had to have been either the eggs or the stream’s water he drank. 

The light slowly came with the sun’s rays breaking through the slightly less dense jungle foliage and the man tried to stand, to leave the sullied, vomit-smeared place which began to smell too as the temperature rose fast with the light. But he was still too weak and hating it, however satisfying it was, but it didn’t help. Dragging himself a few steps he was covered in cold sweat, making his skin clammy and his head dizzy. The retching brought up everything he consumed and so he was heaving dry now until the cramps subsided somewhat.

The heat and the dizziness brought hallucinations too, chaotic, unidentifiable, meaningless pictures and sounds to torment his mind. High-toned, sharp whistles, metallic, heavy clicks and low, growled yells that he almost, but not quite understood. The sounds floated just at the edge of his understanding, making him mad, shouting and screaming aloud so as to blot out the frustrating sounds. The cacophony slowly subsided, the multi-toned voices narrowed down to one that was the most persistent, a shrill, raspy, annoying one. He should know what… who it was… but it eluded him still. 

The sun was going down the other way when he started to regain his senses and equilibrium and the world, the jungle around him returned to its normal, disgusting state. His trashing and trampling created a little clearing among the foliage, smeared with his vomit, blood and sweat, broken boughs and torn greenery with its own sticky juices. He was covered in the same, the man saw, looking down on his body, the mixture of dirt and various fluids a truly disgusting mess on his darkish skin. 

He staggered back to the stream, not caring about any predators – he’d rather be eaten than remain in such a state. But something stopped him from drinking from the water even after he washed down the smears from his skin, an instinct that whispered that it might have caused the illness. The deceptively innocent, clean-looking stream hid dangers from the smallest germs till the largest predators. It was a lesson he forced himself to remember. He wasn’t above such things now, he wasn’t stronger than mere animals or immune to organic germs.

The man lurched, stumbled, fell and rose, but doggedly dragged his aching feet on and on in the dense jungle. It had to end sometime, somewhere, he knew. Where that was and what would he find there – that he wasn’t sure, but something better, someone who could tell him where they were and maybe… why. At least he hoped for clean water to drink and more fuel. He stopped suddenly, a thought taking shape in his brain. He should try and catch some of the animals making the noise around him, the multi-toned racket that echoed long and far under the canopy of the trees. They had fuel in their little bodies.

He listened, trying to isolate the noises to where their owners were. The ones overhead he ignored immediately – climbing the trees was not an activity he even considered and an occasional caught glimpse of the colorful plumage of some birds made him scowl irritated instead of awakening his hunting instincts. They were… too flashy, too colourful, too… vain, like that annoying someone he almost remembered. Weak, pathetic and cowardly to fly high over his head where he couldn’t touch them.

The ones on the ground… were far less, he noticed, quieter and faster too, slinking and running in the cover of the foliage, knowing their places better. Afraid of him and other predators, they had all the marks of prey and the man’s eyes flashed with black fire. He wasn’t a hunter, but close enough to be able to catch some. Or so he thought. After a few hours of running after noises and ending up empty-handed, the man was exhausted and even lower in fuel than before – with nothing to show for his efforts.

Crashing through another bush and seeing the small rodent scurry away and escape his grabbing hands, he shouted into the air furious, beating the hapless bush with his staff in nearly incoherent rage. He was better than an insignificant animal! He was better than this disgusting jungle! He was the mighty… who was he? Someone important, powerful, that much he was sure. Whatever landed him in this jungle was just an accident. It had to be. Once he got out of it, he’d turn back into… whatever he was before. He needed to believe it.

The animals were insignificant, the man decided, beneath his notice, they could keep their slagging, pitiful little fuel in their furry frames. He’d find something else to drink. Though his middle started to cramp again, the man doggedly continued on his way – the way he had no idea where it led. As the sun rose again and the heat grew under the tree-cover, he staggered on and on, nearly blinded by the sweat dripping into his eyes and the leaves slapping his face derisively. The anger smoldered and erupted sometimes, but beating the foliage didn’t bring any relief from his predicament and the man slowly refrained from it to save energy. 

He kicked many boughs and stones with his feet and some were more painful than others; but one in particular had cut across his dirty and swollen toes, eliciting another round of garbled swears and blood flooded out of the wound again. He ignored it, as the object in front of him was just as overgrown with greenery as the rest of the jungle – but the shape was vaguely familiar. His hands followed the contours, scowling as little protrusions snagged it, up and down, the surface strangely flat, not organic, the feel of it under the moss is not organic either… he brushed the green mass off and was rewarded by a familiar sight.

Metal. The man was almost grateful for the well-remembered, well-known feel, the solid, albeit rusted surface that was strangely calming in its hard, jagged presence. Had he been a metalworker perhaps before…? No matter. He tore off even more of the foliage that covered the object and its shape soon became obvious. He scowled, a strange anger awakening inside, originating in his muddled memory banks. The shape was wrong… bad, dangerous, enemy. Enemy? He poked the concept bemusedly. How could a car be an enemy?

The vehicle was an abandoned off-road car, left to rot when it was ensnared by the ruthless jungle, its axle broken in the pit he fell into. Its camouflage paint was nearly gone by the rains, the rust and time, the metal underneath the greenery cover bare, the plastic parts yellowed with age, the glasses broken, gone long ago. It was a mere skeleton of its former shape, home only to a small family of snakes who were at the moment off hunting. The man had no knowledge of it, but he got bored by the vehicle soon, the emotions it awakened remaining unexplained.

For second other vehicles rose from murky memories, smaller and bigger, black, flame-coloured, silver and yellow… and the man snarled in sudden fury, lifting his left arm, aiming it at them… but the fleeting memory sank back into the nothingness as fast as it appeared and he was left yet again with an empty rage in their wake. So cars were… enemies? He struggled to make sense of this concept. Cars were vehicles to transport people and goods. Were some of them more than that? 

Strong hands grabbed the sides of his head, for once not even shaking with disgust at the feel of the mass of hair there, trying to get hold of the fleeing memories, the missing understanding. Why couldn’t he remember? The hands tightened into fists and hit the recalcitrant bony cage that housed so many confusing ideas and so few clear memories. It hurt, but the pain didn’t bring any back, it didn’t clear up the hopeless darkness that swamped his memories. 

As he stood there, cursing and swearing, the jungle darkened suddenly, the temperature dropped and the man felt drops of liquid knock on the leaves, the metal in front of him and on his head, soaking into the tangled fur. Sudden panic gripped him and the need, the compulsion to go under cover, to avoid the liquid that… hurt? The car he was standing in front of suddenly looked far less inimical, its solid, metallic roof a welcome shelter from the rain. It took some time and effort to open the door against the foliage growing all over it, and the inside was filthy, smelly and cramped, but he managed to crawl into it. 

By the time he was inside, the rain was coming down in sheets, completely obscuring everything beyond the car itself in its wet cover, the jungle steaming in the heat. The decrepit car wasn’t a good shelter either; the water found its way in the inside in drops and rivulets through cracks and the long-gone windows. The man shuddered as the liquid slid and oozed on his skin, but strangely it didn’t gouge corroded tracks into him or the car… he hesitantly lifted a wet hand, smelled then licked the rain-liquid on it. To his shock it wasn’t acid, just water, like in the river. It was… drinkable?

Wondering again, why he thought the rain would be corrosive, the man climbed out of the ruins of the car, letting the warm sheets of pouring rain wash away the filth on him and fill up his cupped hands to drink. The cramping lessened slightly in his middle and the absence of the dirt on his skin felt good too. The rain wasn’t even cold, it was warm like everything seemed to be in the jungle, but it seemed to fill the air with even more water, making breathing overwhelmingly difficult. 

When the rain stopped he started to look for the way the car came to be here. There had to be one, however slight, cars were connected firmly to roads, even this type. But he found nothing. The jungle was everywhere around and it was thick, intertwined and chaotic, hardly passable by a man, much less by a vehicle. It seemed to be thwarting him at every step, hindering him and even trying to finish him off when it could. Not the first time, the man tried to remember how and why he came here, what was his purpose that he had to do in this accursed jungle – but like before he could find no reason, no answers, and his anger once more spent, he slogged on to his unknown goal.

But this time there were other eyes watching him from the foliage than animal ones, ones he didn’t notice, as they were far better at hiding than himself. Eyes that found it strange for a naked white man struggle in the jungle – and survive it. The owners of the eyes could, their ancestors lived here for as far as they remembered, but the white men who came here either brought their tech with them… or died fast in the dangerous depths of the dense rainforest.

The place was one of those remaining pockets of Earth that stubbornly remained wild and untamed – and the local drug-lords encouraged it to remain so to protect their plantations and laboratories. The Darién Gap, as maps called the swampy, dense rainforest was about the worst place on Earth for a man to get lost alone and without supplies, guides or memories. But the owner of the eyes were not inclined to help the man out. The local tribes for a long time became helpers and workers for the drug industry – the only employment in this part of the world and an inevitable one if they didn’t want to be killed. 

So they gave no help to the man, letting him stumble and struggle on his own amongst the dangers of the jungle; but the news of him was taken to the nearest camp, where it created quite a ruckus. Strangers here were neither welcomed nor liked, especially ones with so many mysteries and so strong will to survive the jungle. The occasional daring but hapless adventurers were just left to die on their own by natural causes – there were plenty of those and most lethal. One who managed to beat the odds was either trouble… or luck. 

They spread out to find him.


End file.
